Rosenstein Comments on Controversial FARA Filing

Capitol Media Group, a firm that was part of a controversial foreign influence operation that allegedly ensnared veterans into lobbying on behalf of Saudi Arabia, filed its first FARA supplemental statement on record with the U.S. Department of Justice.

Capitol Media Group filed its first supplemental statement with DOJ on October 30, 2018. However, the supplemental statement included a slew of inconsistencies. For example, the statement appears only to cover the six-month period ending September 30, 2018, more than a year after their lobbying activities took place, and there are payments reported to the veterans as opposed to the hotels or other businesses that benefited from the money.

Rosenstein said he is less concerned with why the supplemental statement was filed more than a year after the activities took place than other “substantive problems such as inconsistencies between the supplemental statement and initial filings as well as areas where “all of the boxes that are left blank.”